Artwork to discover
The Rutgers-Newark collection is seen in all the right places
Archived article from Feb 9, 2001
By Helen Paxton
Room 227 in Rutgers-Newark's Robeson Campus Center may not seem like a place to make a new art discovery. But the room contains a surprising splash of color and images -- the whimsical series of "chow prints" by the renowned American artist Robert Rauschenberg. The six large prints, assemblages of silk screen images and actual material from animal-feed bags, are fine examples of Rauschenberg's signature style of semi-hidden images.
These intriguing prints are part of a significant art collection found in various buildings on the Newark campus, a collection worth a tour. The best guides are Patricia Kettenring, director of the arts management program for the business school, and Charles Russell, associate professor of English, who chaired the art acquisition committee for the campus some years ago. More than 100 works in the collection were acquired primarily with funds from a New Jersey State Council on the Arts program supporting "arts inclusion" in new public buildings. The strength of the collection owes much to Russell's and Kettenring's knowledge of contemporary American art and artists, and to the personal attention Newark's library director, Lynn Mullins, has given to art acquisitions at Dana Library.
Below is a quick tour of some of the collection's highlights.
Art stop 1
Robeson Campus Center
It's hard to use the Robeson Campus Center without encountering art. A dramatic full-length portrait of the center's namesake, Paul Robeson, appears in the multipurpose room (Room 231), scene of numerous campus events. The artist is the established portrait painter Kenneth Hari, whose painting, commissioned by Rutgers-Camden law alumnus Alan Gumbs, is the most imposing in the building's "Robeson collection" of six works. A lively painting depicting Robeson's life by Alvin Hollingsworth (Room 224) and a spare bronze bust of Robeson by Alan Bleich (Room 227) capture the essence of Rutgers' most famous alumnus.
If you have lunch in the campus center's second-floor dining room, take some extra time to view a series of 10 lithographs by David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of the most important Mexican artists of the 20th century. The lithographs are a mixture of portraits (including an imposing self-portrait), religious subjects and haunting landscapes. The images derive from the poem by Paul Eluard that is also displayed in the room. There is a dark mood to all of the works, often tending toward the macabre.
Then there is Rauschenberg's 1977 "Chow Bag" series in Room 227. How did these works, which would more likely be encountered in a museum or private collection, end up in an otherwise mundane meeting room? (The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers lists its Rauschenberg "Chow Bag" series among its most significant holdings.) Assistant dean of students Phillip Jones says that much of the outstanding artwork in the building is the result of the contacts of two dynamic directors of the Robeson Gallery in the 1980s -- Stuart White and Alison Weld. They were able to secure the generous donation of the Rauschenberg and Siqueiros prints from Edward Diamond, a local physician and friend of the gallery.
Art stop 2
John Cotton Dana Library
Dana Library's inviting atmosphere owes much to director Lynn Mullins and her great enthusiasm for the library's growing art collection. The library's guides to the art (both on the walls and online atwww.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/dana_lib/dana_lib_artwork.shtml) make an art tour there informative as well as enjoyable.
Among Mullins' most prized works in the library collection are woodcuts by John DePol and Erik Desmazieres. Desmazieres is a noted French printmaker, whose 1998 "Alphabet imaginaire, 2" invites the viewer into a very special world of fantasy and books. The woodcut print is from a series of 11 (the whole series was recently acquired by the library) illustrating Argentine writer Jorge
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